Hello, My Name is Norberta
by tinyrose65
Summary: As Harry prepares to face off against a dragon in the Tournament's first challenge, he meets an old friend that he wasn't quite expecting to see.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Hello, My Name is Norbert(a)

**Summary: **As Harry prepares to face off against a dragon in the Tournament's first challenge, he meets an old friend he wasn't quite expecting to see.

**Note: **So I got this idea in my head after talking to a friend and I figured I'd write it down, since it didn't seem to me as though anybody else had (maybe I missed it...). Hopefully you get as much enjoyment out of the idea as I did. The title, by the way, is supposed to have parentheses, but wouldn't let me do that. Oh well.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. Darn.

* * *

Harry was nervous- beyond nervous, in fact. Outside the tent, he could hear the cheering of the crowds, punctuated occasionally by screams of terror. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to block them out.

He needed to concentrate. He and Hermione had talked over the plan (get his Firebolt and outfly a dragon, basically) and it seemed plausible, but he could only summon his broom if he really, truly focused.

"You have to _want_ it," Hermione told him firmly, earlier that morning, before the champions had been ushered out into the tent. Harry had a feeling that, when the time came and he was confronted by an angry dragon (from what Hermione had told him, female dragons were also much more violent, even when they weren't nesting), he would definitely want it.

His nervousness wasn't helped by the fact that he had ended up with the tempermental Norwegian Ridgeback he had seen that night in the woods, when Hagrid secretly took him on the date with Madam Maxine (the dragons were not the only horrific things he had seen that night, Harry remembered, thinking of Hagrid's sad excuses for flirting).

He was broken out of his reverie by a call for him to come out into the arena.

It was time

Harry took a deep breath, like he would sometimes do before a big Quidditch match, and stepped out.

_This is nothing like Quidditch, _was his first thought. The stadium was massive, but not in the same sense a Quidditch pitch was. A Quidditch pitch was all green grass and wide, open spaces. The arena was rocky, covered in dirt and holes and boulders and difficult terrain.

In the center of it all, Harry could make out the egg, nestled in a pile of straw and dirt. He looked around. The dragon was no where in sight. There was nothing else for it: he took a step forward-

Only to be blindsided as the swipe of a tail caught him off guard. He was thrown into some rocks and the crowd groaned in sympathy. Harry groaned, too, but in pain, as he stood up and dashed for a boulder, hiding behind it.

The dragon was close behind. Harry, for a moment, was convinced that he was going to be burned to death as she tried to burn the rock he was behind. Apparently, she realized that it would take too long and stopped.

Harry, ready to take advantage of the break in the assault, leaned out from behind it and yelled, "_Accio Fi-"_

The dragon cut him off. Apparently realizing that it would take too long to incinerate the rock, she had settled for grabbing it in her talons and hauling it upwards, before dropping it.

Harry avoided the crashing boulder just barely, but the shrapnel that flew at him was enough to loosen his grip on his wand and send it skidding along the ground before it hit the base of the arena wall and was buried in a sea of loose gravel and dirt.

The dragon roared in triumph as Harry darted for his wand, digging through the dirt best he could. It took him only a second to find it, but by then it was too late. When Harry stood up and turned around, the dragon was there, standing in front of him, her nose inches from his face.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, or, in this case, a wall and a fire-breathing monster.

Holding his breath and gripping his wand, Harry wondered vaguely why he wasn't dead yet. The dragon didn't look like she wanted to kill him, though. In fact, she looked oddly- contemplative.

Suddenly, she moved forward. Harry closed his eyes and flinched- _Here it comes. _He expected heat and fire (if he felt anything at all_... Does a person who's incinerated actually feel anything?_), but instead felt something cool and slimy on his face, something oddly like-

A tongue.

Harry opened his eyes, only to be met with another face-full of tongue as the dragon licked him again. Harry blinked as she then began to gently nuzzle into his chest, like a dog eager to be pet.

Harry leaned to the side slightly to get a look at the dragon's tail and, sure enough, it was wagging.

Ignoring the confused mutters of the crowd, Harry did the only thing he could think to do. He reached up and began to pet her, right near her eye-ridges. She made a contented rumbling noise and pushed against him further, almost knocking him off his feet. Thankfully, the wall was right behind him and kept him from falling over, although with the dragon's head at his chest and the wall at his back, Harry was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.

His mind was spinning with a single thought: _Why in Merlin's name has this dragon not killed me yet?_

The dragon, Harry contemplated, was acting as though she knew him, as if they were friends, as if-

Harry's eyes widened and he stopped petting the dragon.

"_Norbet?" _He whispered incredulously.

Norbert, or, he supposed idly, Norberta, sat up on her back legs and let out a roar and a flame of fire in acknowledgement.

Harry decided to take it as a yes.

Then, because he had been spending too much time around Hagrid and had apparently absorbed quite a bit from his lectures on how dragons were misunderstood (_They're real gentle creatures, Harry, honest; yeh'd be shocked at 'ow smart they are, most folks would, 'cos most people don' give 'em no chance), _Harry had a crazy idea.

Since his crazy ideas usually tended to work in life-or-death situations, he decided to give it a try.

"Norbert," Harry began, then added, "-a. It's lovely to see you again, but I sort of need that gold-egg behind you."

Norberta blinked at him and for a minute Harry felt like a bit of an idiot. Then, she turned around, plodded over to the nest, gently picked up the golden egg in her mouth, and brought it back to him, dropping it in his outstretched hands.

Harry gaped as Norberta then went back to licking him- this time his hair. Apparently she, like most of the other females in his life (Aunt Petunia, Mrs. Weasley, McGonagall, Hermione...) had decided it was too messy.

As he stood in the middle of the arena, surrounded by a dumbstruck crowd and holding his golden egg with a dragon licking his hair, Harry realized something very important.

_I have a lot of explaining to do._

* * *

**AN: ****So, that's it. Quite possibly one of the shortest stories I've ever written- definitely the shorted thing I've ever posted. Still, I appreciate any feedback, since this is my first oneshot!**

**Until next time!**

**Tinyrose65**


	2. Chapter 2

Harry had been in a lot of very sticky situations before: first with the Dursleys (from turning his teacher's wig blue to cleaning up after one of Dudley's candy binges), then at Hogwarts (see: basilisk, giant). This certainly had to be one of the strangest and, in Harry's mind, the scariest.

After seeing Norbert for the first time in several years, Harry had gratefully returned to the tent, ready for a bit of rest and a large dinner. Instead, he had been ushered from the tent to Dumbledore's office and plunked down onto one of the impossibly plushy chairs.

He was now surrounded by Madam Maxine, Karkaroff, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Moody, and Hagrid, who looked quite thrilled at the whole thing.

"Crikey, 'arry!" he had exclaimed as Harry had sat down. "That was something, there in the arena! To think! Yeh got _that _close to a proper dragon, eh?"

"That ees what we are all wondering!" Madam Maxine said crossly, her accent coming through more thickly than ever. "That close to a dragon, without a 'air on 'is 'ead 'armed!"

Harry reached up to rub his hair a bit. He wouldn't say that _none _his hairs were harmed. Norberta had licked his head quite roughly back in the arena. All of her attempts to straighten him up, however, just succeeded in making his hair stand up worse.

"I agree!" Karkaroff said. "The boy must've cheated somehow!"

Harry tried not to sputter at Karkaroff's hypocrisy.

"Stop being such an idiot, Karkaroff," Moody said with a roll of his glass eye. "How was Harry to know about the dragons?"

Hagrid tried not to look too guilty.

"I am sure Harry has a very logical explanation for the matter." It was Dumbledore who spoke now. He looked entirely serene and at ease. Harry wished he could look like that whenever he wanted

"I 'ave a logical explanation!" Madam Maxine said fiercely. "Eet's obvious ze boy _knew _the dragon some'ow! Zey seemed downright friendly with each other!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw McGonagall's eyebrows rise and he wondered whether or not she had put two and two together: Malfoy's claims in first year that there had been a dragon and now _this. _She met Harry's eyes and he was unable to stop himself from blushing hotly and looking away.

He had never been good at lying, but it looked like the only way he was going to get out of this was going to be by learning how to do it quickly.

As in _right_ now.

"Where would Mr. Potter have seen a dragon?" Professor McGonagall scoffed. If she _had _realized where Harry knew Norberta from, she wasn't letting in on it.

Madam Maxine sputtered and Harry took the time to say, "I don't know any dragons!"

"Then how do you explain your encounter with the beast?" Karkaroff demanded.

Harry stuttered. His mind was whirling. _Just tell them you have no idea. Tell them you have no idea and hopefully they'll believe you and think it was a freak accident._

Instead, when he opened his mouth what came out was, "My cologne!"

The silence that met this statement was rather impressive. Even _Snape, _who's face almost always wore the same expression, seemed surprised. Dumbledore said, politely doubtful, "Your cologne?"

"It was a birthday gift from the Dursleys," Harry said. This, of course, was completely false. The Dursleys hadn't given him a proper gift in _years. _"I wore it today for good luck. Something in it must've, you know. Attracted the dragon."

Harry was internally hitting himself. _Out of all the ridiculous things-_

"There you have it," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "A simple coincidence. Stranger things have happened you know. I myself happen to have a scar that looks like a map of-"

"Oh, forget your scar!" Karkaroff scowled. "Are you telling me this boy _just so happened _to have a dragon _aphrodisiac _as cologne?"

"Do you have a more likely option?" McGonagall demanded. Karkaroff and Madam Maxine were both quiet. "In that case, Mr. Potter, you are dismissed."

Harry didn't need to be told twice. He sprang up and dashed out of the office, almost tripping in his haste. As he descended down the stairs, he could still hear the argument going on in the office, but he decided that he didn't care. He was going to go back the common room, get a bite to eat, and laugh about this whole, mad thing with Ron-

Oh.

Except he and Ron weren't talking anymore.

Suddenly feeling more tired than ever, Harry didn't notice Hagrid running to catch up with him until he put a large hand on his shoulder.

"Hagrid!" Harry jerked in surprise, turning around. Hagrid was panting slightly and his face was red. It took Harry a moment to realize that it wasn't red with exertion, but embarrassment.

"Hagrid?" Harry asked hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Hagrid nodded, still gasping. "Jus' fine. Listen, 'arry, I was wondering-"

"Yes?"

"Could I borrow some of that cologne of yers?"

* * *

**AN: Alright, so I'm not ****_too _****thrilled with this, but this has been requested so much and I wanted to do it so badly that I finally gave in. This was the most ludicrous explanation I could think of Harry giving. Let me know if you enjoyed it. **

**tinyrose65**


End file.
